Chapter Thirty-One: Rout

With the simultaneous discharge of 100 magazines from 100 firearms, a torrent of 8,000 bullets slammed into the swarm. In just 20 seconds, over 20 of the more than 100 strange birds charging at the front line had fallen. Dozens more suffered severe damage to their bodies or wings, leaking boiling liquid that instantly froze upon contact with the air.

The sheer power of firearms was immense! Li Qingsong felt a surge of adrenaline and immediately issued new orders. With mechanical precision, the 100 clones acted as one: they ejected their empty magazines, stowed them at their waists, drew fresh, fully loaded ones, inserted them, and pulled the triggers again.

Tongues of fire erupted from the muzzles once more.

This time, however, the clones' movements were no longer perfectly synchronized. With the immediate defensive crisis resolved, the clones had to disperse into mobile squads, rushing to provide support wherever danger emerged. Across the battlefield, amidst the cold, icy glint of melee weapons, there now appeared the frequent, rhythmic flashes of thermal weaponry.

Previously, when a melee squad was pushed to its limit, Li Qingsong had been forced to rely on sheer sacrifice, urgently pulling reserves from other areas to plug the gaps. But things were different now. Whenever danger arose, a dozen firearm-wielding clones would rush to the spot, unleashing a hail of hundreds of bullets, instantly downing several birds and alleviating the pressure.

Where a front line was on the verge of collapsing, Li Qingsong had once been forced to draw clones from other, less pressured areas, triggering a chain reaction that left the entire defense stretched thin and struggling. Now, however, he simply deployed a few dozen guns to that sector, effectively halting even the most ferocious charges. With the addition of these 100 firearms, the entire situation at the main base’s front line had been transformed.

Li Qingsong felt a deep sense of relief, though it was tempered by urgency. Firearms were effective, but their numbers were too low, and the ammunition was even scarcer. With only 80,000 rounds in total, they would be exhausted in mere minutes if fired at full capacity. His attention shifted back to the firearms factory, where 1,500 clones were hard at work.

He knew he could not spare any more clones to supplement the factory. The reason was simple: out of the 16,000 clones on the front lines, he had only 5,000 left to manage essential tasks like food production, power generation, steel manufacturing, railway transport, and mineral extraction. He could not spare a single soul.

It did not matter, though. Under Li Qingsong’s hyper-efficient management, the factory had completed its initial setup, debugging, and trial runs. After more than 10,000 fine-tuned adjustments to the production line, it was now running at peak efficiency. Output began to surge at a visible rate.

Where parts had once trickled onto the conveyor belts like a sporadic stream, they now flooded forward in dense, unbroken rows. The stream had evolved into a raging river. Not only had the production efficiency of the components improved, but the manual assembly speed of the clones had also skyrocketed. Through the trial runs, they had grown increasingly proficient. Because experience gained by one clone was instantly synchronized across the collective, every technique and lesson was immediately shared by all.

The clones had become one with the production line, indistinguishable from the machinery itself. Even when a shift rotated after eight hours of continuous labor, the replacement clones integrated into the system without a single second of delay or hesitation. Yesterday, they had produced only 100 firearms; today, by eight in the morning, they had already produced 200. They were on track to exceed 700 for the day.

Li Qingsong had intentionally throttled the production of firearms to divert more resources toward ammunition and magazines. As a result, the output of bullets grew at an even more staggering rate. Yesterday, they had produced 80,000 rounds; today, in just eight hours, they had manufactured 1,000,000.

With further fine-tuning, the bullet production continued to climb, with an expected daily output of 3.5 million rounds. As production surged, the transport trucks began to run at full capacity. Boxes of firearms and ammunition were loaded and raced to the front lines, where waiting clones retrieved them in orderly queues.

Large numbers of melee clones were withdrawn from the front, but before the birds could advance, they were met with an endless barrage of gunfire. The clones no longer worried about ammunition shortages. Whenever an enemy appeared, they simply held down the trigger, emptying their 80-round magazines before swapping for fresh ones. Each clone carried three magazines and 20 additional clips, totaling 1,520 rounds per person. Including their armor, the total load weighed about 60 kilograms, but due to the low gravity of the planet, it felt like a mere 4.8 kilograms.

With a constant stream of bullets tearing through the air and trucks delivering fresh supplies every moment, the tide of battle at the main base shifted dramatically. The once-fragile front line not only stabilized but began to push forward. The birds threw themselves into the fray wave after wave, only to be cut down by the torrent of lead. Within a single day, the thousands of birds besieging the main base were annihilated, leaving none behind.

Li Qingsong finally breathed a sigh of relief. Leaving 2,000 firearm-equipped clones to guard the main base, he ordered another 2,000 to board the trains. It was time for the birds besieging the other bases and the railways to get a taste of the firepower.